Attack on Haredi Jew In Antwerp Thwarted by Intended Victim

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Attack on Haredi Jew In…

ANTWERP JEWS

In early May of this year, a Haredi resident of the Belgium port city of Antwerp was the intended victim of an assault. (In 2022, there have been numerous antisemitic attacks in Antwerp, where some 18,000 Jews — most of them haredi — live.) This time, the perpetrator got more than he bargained for: The Jewish man overpowered him and held him until the police arrived.

Quote: “It began like countless other antisemitic incidents in Antwerp: A man shouted insults and made threatening gestures at members of the Belgian city’s large Orthodox Jewish community. But the incident on Sunday near the city’s central railway station took an unexpected turn. After the alleged perpetrator appeared to swing his arm to hit a Jewish man in haredi Orthodox garb, the would-be victim lunged back and overpowered his attacker, holding him down on the ground until police took the suspect into custody.”
— The Jerusalem Post

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Photo: The Times of Israel

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“[T]he foundations for extremism usually are held in check by various restraints. Societies are not liberal, moderate, progressive, and free because almost all their citizens – let alone their politicians — are liberal, moderate, progressive or committed to the freedoms of others.

“But societies consistently avoid extremism when the infrastructures of freedom are strong: when key institutions and norms encourage a more decent, rights-respective, lawful politics; when powerful social movements and independent media hold leaders to account, expose rather than reinforce political fantasies, and champion the rights of the vulnerable; and when information is produced and scrutinized by scholars, civil servants, and non-governmental organizations devoid of either government repression or vested interests.

“Yet no infrastructure is rigidly immovable, and once key components are eroded and weakened, once sections of the political and cultural elite attempt to mobilize the foundations of extremism, the system of restraints can swiftly collapse.

“While genocide on the scale of the Holocaust is historically exceptional, its central lesson is that the broader danger of extreme atrocities is not. In the words of the great historian Ian Kershaw, the Holocaust ‘lit a warning beacon that still burns brightly: it showed how a modern, advanced, cultured society can so rapidly sink into barbarity… It showed what we are capable of.’ Only by rejecting false narratives of conflict and polarization, and maintaining systems of rights and freedoms for all, can we hope to prevent that capability from once more becoming a reality.”

— Jonathan Leader Maynard in his incisive article “Could It Happen Here?: The Holocaust and Atrocities in the 21st Century” To read the entire article, click here.